Politicians Still Trying To Outlaw Being A Jerk
from the it's-not-going-to-work dept
Reader eoinmonty writes in to let us know that Irish politicians are pressuring mobile phone companies to stop mobile phone bullying, and saying that if the companies can't do so, they'll be forced to put in place laws that require them to stop bullying. The whole thing is rather ridiculous, and, as one phone company rep accurately pointed out: "It is unrealistic and unfair to expect mobile phone operators to solve what is a broader societal problem." Indeed. It seems as if politicians think that somehow the mobile operators can just snap their fingers and stop undesired activity. They can't. And, to let them in on a little secret: even passing a law won't do much to help. People are going to be bullies -- and passing a law or asking the mobile phone companies to hold back the tide won't do much to stop them.
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Filed Under: bullying, cyberbullying, ireland, liability, responsibility
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Unemployment
That would put a lot of politicians out of work.
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Re: Unemployment
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Re: Unemployment
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hmm
I'd love to see a law getting rid of all the saber rattling.
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If the mobile operator is Apple they probably can.
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Law...
The job of the "Law" is to take money from you (the people) and give it to the city/state/county/socialist-state (whatever) that said person works for.
No matter how stupid the legislation is which gets passed, if it provides realistic opportunities for the "Law" to take more of your money, then it will be enforced.
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Re:
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The concept of free entreprise is to forster competition... not enslave customers.
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Bullying
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Is it wrong to outlaw bullying?
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Re: Is it wrong to outlaw bullying?
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bullying is a crime.
A bigger guy comes up to you on the street corner and surrounds you with his friends. He demands the money that you were going to use to go buy yourself a Starbucks double-mocha. If you don't give it to him he is going to beat you up?
He then says that unless you meet him here every day and give him the $5 he and his friends are going to hang out near where you work and then threaten to beat you up.
Guess it must not be a crime because the equivalent isn't a crime if everyone is under age.
Lets say that you are at work and you are walking in the hallway. No doubt thinking of something highly laizze-faire, and suddenly a person walks by and slams you into the wall.
Not a crime?
Ooooook? Whatever you say.
How about this? You start getting threatening text messages that say that the texter is going to "Teach you a lesson"?
Not a crime.
Personally, I call this intimidation, and extortion no matter the age of the perps.
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Re: bullying is a crime.
There is no reason to make additional laws for breaking laws "with a cellphone" Should we also make a new law for gambling with a cell phone? How about a law making it illegal to sell drugs via cell phone? No it's stupid and ridiculous.
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Re: Re: bullying is a crime.
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Proud to be Irish!
Let's see - Simon Coveney, a singularly underachieving example of Irish political life whose only distinction is being the son of the late Hugh Coveney, a former minister.
And there's Michael d'Arcy, similarly following in his father's footsteps of mediocrity. As a farmer, he is of course completely qualified to serve on the Communications committee!
And here's yet another scion of a former minister, MJ Nolan, who at least had the balls to challenge Haughey, so he's due a teeny bit of respect.
All highly qualified to know about the technical aspects of mobile phone systems.
Don't expect this to go anywhere soon!
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Re: Proud to be Irish!
Generally speaking however, content filtering is quite possible, though not cheap.
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bully thru cell phone
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How about DON'T LET YOU KID HAVE A CELL PHONE. Morons. I know the Irish are stereotyped as a bit thick, but there's really no need to live up to that stereotype!
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Re:
If it can be turned on and off on a phone-by-phone basis (ie, you can enable filtering for your child) then sure, but global filtering??
This should be the parents responsibility, not the governments.
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KB post 14 is correct
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Re: KB post 14 is correct
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I Dont think Bullying is really at the heart of this:
He said Irish children were among the heaviest users of mobile phones in the world and had sent three billion texts in the past three months alone.
This is almost the exact same arguement that has been argued here about TV censorship. More people take it seriously when they put Bullying as the core subject. While it may seem like their main concern is to stop bullying the real attempt here is to force the mobile phone company to police the kids of parents. I always find it absurd when parents to do this. They dont want to parent their kids but expect the corporate world to do this. If your kid is not responsible or mature enough to use a mobile phone. DO NOT PURCHASE ONE FOR THEM!!! Dont expect the world to raise your children. Thats the job of the parents, NOT VERIZON!!!
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Allow bully blocking
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Content
But if this is to be a global block what then if I, as a mature adult, want to send "indecent" things to say my wife??
Naturally if she had a problem with that I'd get a "Knock it off" and a slap upside the head after the first one. If she started receiving them from say strangers then she could simply block the sender and be done with it.
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Allow blocking numbers at least..
I don't know the specifics about these instances where the request is being made. But being able to request that certain numbers be blocked is not excessive.
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Re: Allow blocking numbers at least..
The problem is trying to automatically block bullying. Having each user manually blacklist numbers is something I'd actually like to see (and not just because I stand to gain from it, but because I actually think it would be useful)
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Politicians Still Trying To Outlaw Being A Jerk
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I agree with the law
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This is your FINAL notice
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I confess
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Re: I confess
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seriously....
secondly, how do you do this without breaking, um, all the personal privacy laws ever?
@Pat: you just compared mugging to being pushed around in school.
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Re: seriously....
Also, I have yet to find any information on this mythical technology. The only references that google finds me is.. this article and related. I have a reasonable idea as to how SMS messaging works (I work in telecommunications) and I don't see any practical way of accomplishing this without a major time/money investment and even then, its effectiveness would be highly debatable.
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We get retired old ladies who love to pry, and get them to pick text messages at random. If any of the messages are deemed inappropriate, the offender is traced to their home, dragged out back, and then beaten by the old ladies with handbags full of bricks until they're very sorry for what they've done.
The person who was bullied is similarly traced, except is given an apple tart or knitted a jumper instead.
I personally believe this is less retarded than what our technologically stunted government of muck-saveages is proposing.
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Re:
Actually, I like this solution. It gets the old ladies out of the house, means we don't have to pay them pensions (instead pay them wages for their work, the wages would be paid by money the government would have used to implement SMS blocking anyway). And it will cut down on bullying! Hell, if I thought a retired old lady would beat me with a handbag and give whoever I bullied a knitted sweater...
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